The PostPing Sexual Initiative
by NocturnalRites
Summary: Partners stand by each other, no matter what.  So do lovers.


The Post-Ping Sexual Initiative, The Middleman, Middleman/Wendy Watson: Prompts: desire, partner, care, need, naked, Ida, vibrator, lust, sparring

Rating: M  
>Characters: MMWW  
>Word Count: 3,727<br>Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to these characters, the show or the comic and I am not being paid for this.  
>Summary: Partners stand by each other, no matter what. So do lovers.<br>Spoilers: Takes place post-Doomsday (for name reference)  
>Song: Shadowboxer (Fiona Apple) [not that it bears much significance to the story, but I used a random song spin for spark]<br>Many thanks to The Blue Fenix for line editing, story hashing and beta reads, and to RockerGirl for the beta reads and patiently waiting for my promised smut! You guys are the best.

THE POST-PING SEXUAL INITIATIVE

"Holy shit!" Springs creaked as Wendy Watson shifted to the edge of her chair, eyes glued to the control room's monitor bank. Fear squeezed her voice to a squeak. "Boss is going to get _killed._"

Ida didn't look up from her game of solitaire. "Hasn't happened yet," she said, bored.

No consolation there, surprise, surprise. Wendy ground her teeth. Only her death grip around the armrests kept her from launching from the chair and racing down the hall to the dojo. That and the knowledge that she'd be about as much help against Sensei Ping as a BB gun against a charging elephant.

This was the first time she'd ever watched her boss and Sensei Ping spar. The sensei still refused to allow the Middleman to watch Wendy's sessions; however, the master had decided Wendy might be able to learn a great deal from watching the Middleman.

She'd learned one thing, all right. No matter how much of an honor it might be, she never, _ever_ wanted to be Sensei Ping's favorite apprentice. 'Favorite apprentice' in Sensei Ping-ese translated to 'preferred punching bag'. Though the Middleman was consistently landing blows on the master, which was more than Wendy could do, he was taking a hell of a beating in return.

Watching the two men, she finally understood why the Middleman had been so anxious before her first session with the sensei. Years of gorefest video games and movies had inured Wendy to most violence, but this was brutality on a level that made even her stomach flip. Polite bows and proper forms aside, these two men were doing their best to kill each other. No restraint. No hesitation. No mercy.

The thinking part of her brain worried about Boss; the blows Sensei Ping delivered made the attacks of the Luchadores look like love taps. The primitive part, however, thought the Middleman in action was a knee-melting, panty-soaking sight to behold, and not only because he was half-naked. Violence had always held a visceral, even sexual thrill for Wendy, and the last time she'd seen him pushed to these extremes was when he'd fought Cien Mascaras. At the time, she'd been too busy trying to save him and Sensei Ping to appreciate his performance as it deserved.

She'd spent some quality time with her Rabbit when she'd gotten home, though.

The Middleman had said he and the sensei would spar for an hour. Only a few minutes left. Surely he could hold out that long. And then...she had the rest of the day off. She'd told him she'd go home and paint or hang out with Lacey. Provided he was willing and capable, though, she had a _much_ better idea of what she wanted to do instead. If he was too worn out to fend her off, so much the better. She didn't even mind doing most of the work. All in a good cause.

The two men circled each other in one last grappling match. Sensei Ping twisted in a move she couldn't even see, much less know how to counter – there was a reason the master wanted her to watch the _slower_ opponent, after all – and the Middleman hit the far wall of the dojo with a thud Wendy could hear faintly even in the control room.

Images jittered, snapping with staticky snow, and the screens went dark.

"The fuck?" Wendy leaped to her feet. "What happened?"

Ida slapped down another card. "Cool it, greenie. The impact loosened the cable to the video feed, that's all. I'll get it fixed."

Did the android have any idea of how hard that impact had to have been? Stupid question; she probably did, down to the last foot-pound of force. She didn't care. Wendy's fingers trembled as she tapped out the Middleman's code on her watch. "Boss?"

The bright red screen of a Code 86 blinked back at her. Locking her out. A locator trace pinged unavailable. She rounded on Ida.

"Is he all right? Where is he? Why aren't you going to the infirmary for him?" She knew better than to ask about the lockout; she'd take that up with him when she saw him. Why give the android an excuse to deliver an extra side of snark?

"You think I'm not monitoring? He's fine." The android chose a card, set it into place. "If he'd wanted me to meet him in the infirmary, he'd've told me by now."

"You're not even going to check on him?" Boss _always_ checked her over after a session with the sensei, usually over her protests. Although the post-training checkups had become a lot more intimate since they'd started sleeping together, it was still safety first, sex second.

"If he wants help, he knows how to ask. Nothing in the telemetry shows any cause for alarm."

Telemetry Wendy couldn't access. "I don't _care_ if he's not asking for help. I want to make sure he's okay."

"Boss always has private time after a training session. I know he told you to take the rest of the day off, too. Pretend it's 4:20. Go home and hit the doobage early."

"In case you missed it, Circuit City, Sensei Ping pounded him like a steak. Tell me where he is. I want to check on him."

"Right," Ida said sarcastically. "And of course, that's _all_ you had in mind, hot pants. Talk about telemetry readings."

Wendy favored Ida with a saccharine smile. "You know, if anything really goes wrong with him, you'll be stuck with me as your new boss."

"So?"

"So, unless I get a location out of you, the first thing I'll do is issue a permanent order forbidding you to watch your soaps. _Ever_. And the Price is Right? Gone."

The android eyed her with dislike. Heaved a sigh her mechanical body didn't need. "Biometric locator shows he's in his quarters. He's got it locked, but I'll override it. Go on and take your hormone pollution with you before I have to change the filters in here."

"You're all heart, Tin Woman."

###

One quick stop by the changing room later, Wendy stood outside the door of the Middleman's suite. Her hand hovered over the door panel, then dropped to the knob. If she knocked, she'd be giving him a chance to turn her away. She was his lover, but she was his partner, first. If he really wanted to be left alone, fine, but as his partner, she couldn't leave without knowing he was all right. He'd understand.

Normally, the door would have opened at the pressure of her hand, but the manual override didn't engage the hydraulics. Bulletproof and for all she knew, bomb proof, the thing weighed nearly as much as she did. Grunting with effort, she levered it open enough to slip inside before the pressure difference between the room and the hallway yanked the doorknob from her fingers. With a report like a gunshot, the door crashed shut.

The next second, she was slammed against it, hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs. Stars whirled in her darkened vision. The Middleman's voice came to her from a great distance.

"Dubbie?"

Damn. Talk about hair trigger reflexes. She hadn't even _seen_ him. Blinking rapidly, she willed her senses to clear. When they did, she was still against the door, barred in by his arms on either side, and he loomed over her.

"Hey," she croaked.

He lowered his head, ribs bellowsing in and out as he sucked deep drafts of air. The corded muscles in his shoulders and arms stood out in stark relief. She thought if she listened hard enough, she could hear the hum of his wire-strung nerves.

"I'm so sorry, Wendy." He didn't meet her eyes. "I didn't mean to hurt you. The noise...I wasn't expecting anyone. Ida should have told you."

"She did, sort of. You didn't hurt me. And _don't_ apologize. I startled you."

He went on as if she hadn't spoken. "Combat reflexes. I have to take some time to decompress after a session with Sensei Ping. Doesn't make me fit company for anyone, for a while."

That explained the lockout, anyway. She could understand his tension; her own lessons with Sensei Ping left her keyed her up and shaking with high octane adrenaline. As hard as the sensei pushed him, his had to be worse. Not to mention God-knew-what reactions and flashbacks he had to suppress from his SEAL years, too.

"You're always good company. Fit...that's what I came to see. I couldn't leave without knowing you were all right."

He straightened slowly. When he did, she saw shadows beneath sweat-glossed skin, bruises preparing to bloom.

"No worse than usual. I'll be fine." He still wouldn't look at her, but like the bruises, the emotions coloring his expression were easy to see. He looked...ashamed. More. Frightened. As if he'd seen a car barrel by her and pass close enough to brush her clothes. Which, come to think of it, wasn't far off the mark. If she'd been an enemy, she knew she'd be dead.

But she wasn't. And his ability to react as he did kept her safe. She was his partner, but she was also his lover. When they were together, she never flinched from anything. Especially not from him. Past time she drove that point home to him.

He touched the towel wrapped around her, frowning. "What's this?"

"Call it green gift wrap." Not exactly seduction wear, but it had been best she could manage on short notice. Showing up dressed wasn't an option; stripping out of the cumbersome Middlegear was as erotic as a tapdancing elephant. She guided his hand to the fold holding the towel in place over her breasts and tugged. When the towel hit the floor, his lips curved in the ghost of a smile.

"Good gravy, woman, you don't waste any time, do you?" He brushed his fingertips against the upper slope of her bare breasts. Scrapes shone rawly on his knuckles, the reminder of recent violence mute contrast to the gentleness of his touch.

"I like shortcuts." She stepped closer. Body heat battered her bare skin in waves.

"I noticed." The words were rough around the edges. "I...this isn't a good idea right now, Dubbie. Maybe we should wait."

"Wait for what? For you to pace around and be up half the night on your adrenaline jag?" Leaning forward, she flicked her tongue against his nipple. He rewarded her with a low hiss. "Try me instead. I'm a lot more fun than insomnia."

"_Dubbie_." His hands closed over her shoulders. "I'm not in a mood to be slow and I don't trust myself to be careful. You saw what almost happened. I don't want to hurt you."

"So I won't slam any more doors." She grazed her teeth against the other nipple, felt his fingers tighten, hard. Much more so than she would have expected; he usually made love to her as if he was afraid she'd shatter. "I've said I like it rough. I'm not worried."

"I am."

"Sounds like a personal problem." Tiptoeing, she locked her hands behind his neck, and dragged his mouth down to hers. He tasted cool, clean, as if he'd been drinking spring water. When she ran her hands over him, she accidentally hit places that made him flinch, but she couldn't stop herself from exploring. His tension made him feel different beneath her fingers, against her body. Harder, as if his skin covered springs and steel instead of muscle and bone. When she went to work on the waistband of his shorts, he gave a muffled sound which may have started as protest but ended as assent. By the time they were forced to surface for air, his shorts were history and given the difficulty she had working the waistband over his erect cock, she was pretty sure she'd turned no into at least a maybe. She swayed suggestively against him, fingernails digging lightly into his buttocks, testing the tensile strength of his refusal.

"I should go shower, at least." His voice was lower than usual, barbed with a growl.

"Don't you dare." No way was she going to give him a chance to retreat, and anyway, there was no need. His skin still carried its usual soapy, starchy-clean scent, but there was another layered on as well, one which was spicy sharp, with a dash of clean, salt sweat. A deep breath sent chills down her skin and triggered an internal meltdown. If a company bottled it, they could market it under the name Primal Male in Heat and make a fortune.

His cock battered against her stomach; he was as ready as she was. When she took him in hand, he flinched. She could almost hear his mental counting through the steps of some self-restraint exercise; Frozen Tundra, maybe, or Icy Pines.

"I don't think..."

"No, that's the problem. You do. Think. You need to stop." She dragged her thumb along his cock, from crown to base, stroking the moisture pearling at the tip along his smooth, heated skin. His eyes half-closed and his breath hitched.

"Dubbie. I mean it. I..." He broke off, hips flexing as she stroked him again. One hand closed tightly on her hip, pulling her against him; the other skated up the curve of her waist to find her breast, his thumb scraping over her puckering nipple. Like his voice, there was a rough, unfinished edge to his movements that was nothing like his usual careful, considerate foreplay. Raw. Dangerous. Desire belted her hard and low, cutting her breath short.

"Boss. _Clarence_." She stood on tiptoe and whispered against his lips. "Shut up and fuck me, already."

He stilled. She'd begun to wonder whether he was trying to keep from climaxing or if her language had thrown him out of the mood when he reached down, cupped her ass in his big hands and dragged her up against him, pulling her feet off the floor. His cock was a thick, hot bar trapped against her stomach, chest hair a wet, welcome abrasion on her nipples. Tangling her fingers into his damp hair, she kissed him. He returned it as if he'd rather devour her instead, hard enough that her teeth scored the inside of her lip, and pulled her higher, spreading her legs open around him.

For a dizzying moment, she wondered if he was going to try to drive into her there, standing up. The thought rocked her into a tiny pre-orgasm quiver. Instead, he shifted her hips inward, fitting them together, until the shaft of his cock slid against her center. She tried to pull herself up the few extra inches she'd need to get him inside her, but both leverage and his strength worked against her. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly in frustration and rocked against him, moaning into his mouth at the feel of him, wet velvet against her aching clit.

He pulled his mouth from hers long enough to murmur into her ear. "That's just rude, you know. You should at least say please."

Another slow, long stroke against her clit. Whimpering, she fought his hands again. For all she could break his grasp, she might as well have been trying to bend iron, and it aroused her even more.

"I'm dying here and you're hung up on –" Another flex, another mind-melting slide. She nearly forgot how to speak. "—my _manners_?"

She felt him smile against her neck. "Civility is the cornerstone of good relationships, Dubbie."

She squirmed in a fruitless attempt to shift him. "Fine. Fuck me, _please,_ damn it?"

Still holding her against him, he carried her the few feet into his bedroom and dropped her on his bed. She saw him take a half-step backwards. No way was she letting him leave. Hooking her leg, she tried to catch him behind the knee, to topple him over as well. The Sensei-trained move would have worked on nearly anyone else in the world. Not him, especially not at the level of readiness at which he was still operating. Her calf hit his palm with the meaty smack of flesh on flesh, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile.

"You didn't really think that would work, did you?"

"It was that or find a rope, because you are _so_ not leaving me like this."

He pulled her leg straight and sank his teeth into her instep. Lightly, enough to make her toes curl in reaction and ripple shivers down her spine. The big bad wolf giving Little Red a chance to run before he ate her for dinner.

"Be careful what you ask for."

"Right. Because I'm just _made_ of careful."

"Maybe you should be." His eyes were dark and serious, belying the lightness of his tone. She stared right back, willing him not to look away.

"Oh, yeah? Do your worst." _I love you. I'm not scared_.

His expression altered, worry smoothing away as he caught the subtext – one of the many reasons she loved him so fiercely; his ability to understand what she really meant.

"I'd rather do my best."

"Like you ever do anything...else..." Her thoughts fractured past her ability to collect them into speech as he moved from her ankle to her inner thigh, marking each spot on his trail by sucking her skin between his teeth, then laving the sting away with his tongue. She'd have a chain of hickeys from her ankle to her inner thigh tomorrow. Not something he normally did. It felt all kinds of primitive, though not possessive. A promise, a responsibility. _Mine to hold_. _Mine to protect. _One of those things he'd never say; like her, he had his own subtexts of meaning.

Closer to his target, he pulled her thighs wide, hands clamping down in an inescapable grip. Not that she was trying to free herself, especially when he licked into her, flicking her clit with tiny brushes that were just enough to make her start coming, little trembling butterfly orgasms that made her shake and clench and beg for more in a wail of prayerful profanity. There was a big one waiting around the corner, and it was going to be cataclysmic, if he'd only let her _have_ it.

She released her death grip on the duvet to clutch at his shoulders, fingers slipping for purchase on his sleek skin as she tried to drag him up and into her. Score one for the power of desperate lust; she managed to throw him off balance. The two of them rolled, tumbling over each other until she was pinned face down beneath him.

He pulled her up by her hips until she was on all fours, then shifted forward, his thighs pushing hers wider as he moved over her, kissing his way up the shallow groove of her spine to the back of her neck. A touch of five o'clock shadow roughened his face; the contrast of his lips and cheek was satin and fine sandpaper against her skin. His movements were abrupt, jerky, as if he were trying to remember how to be careful but couldn't quite manage it. Fine with her.

The blunt, broad head of his cock nudged at her entrance, pushed in slowly. She craned her neck around, stared up at him through tousled hair.

"Don't you _dare_ hold back on me, damn it."

"Dubbie, I –"

"I mean it." Her voice cracked. "_Give me everything_."

He exhaled a low groan and thrust into her, hard, not waiting, as he usually did, for her to adjust to him. Even as wet as she was, there was a sting and a stretch as he went deep. Another long push, all the way in and all the way down until she gasped at the fullness, and another, bringing her to the border of too much, almost to pain. Pain wasn't something she'd ever gotten into, but this discomfort only added a razored edge to her own need.

He did stop then, panting with the effort of restraint, and murmured something that might have been an apology. All she wanted was more. Hard, raw and rude, or at least as much as he was willing to do. She bucked back against him, squeezing him, forcing him deeper, and heard him groan again as he gave in to the silent demand. His grip tightened over her hips – he'd mark her there as well, she thought – and he shoved into her, one long stroke flowing into the next, battering her inside and making her moan. He wasn't brutal, but she sensed he could be, oh, yes, he could be, and only a molecule-thin layer of control was keeping it from being that way. But he had the control, as she'd believed he would.

Sensing his effort, knowing how this lovely, lethal man was fighting himself so he could please her, made her feel incredibly powerful, so charged she thought she'd fly apart if he touched her, just right, just once. Then he did, fingers finding and stroking her clit as he sank into her again. Her release hit her hard enough to make the world waver at the edges and to drive a thin scream from her. Digging her fingers into the duvet, she rocked against in him in time with the aftershocks, one last ripple lapping over her again as he poured into her.

They came apart slowly and fell together in a limp and boneless tangle. He draped an arm over her, pulling her close and kissing her hair. She ran her fingertips down his chest, lightly. Flesh and bone now, not steel and tension.

She wasn't good at expressing how she felt in words, never had been. But she hoped he'd understood what she'd meant to say. _I trust you. You can't scare me away. I love even the parts of yourself that you fear._

He did understand, as he always did. She saw it in his smile, in the warmth behind hazel eyes as he kissed her. Slow, sweet and tender this time, no less delicious. His voice was distant thunder in his chest, rumbling against her cheek.

"By the way, Sensei Ping wants to see you tomorrow."

She bit him hard enough to make him grunt. "Guess you'd better start resting up for round two."


End file.
